Take Back Personal Lines with Agency Revenue Tools

A small three person agency located in Central Florida increased their personal lines book by $800,000 in 12 months. Another in Northern Florida with...

September 1, 2005

More Options for Clients Means More Customers for Your Agency

By Bill JenkinsVice President, Business DevelopmentPIA National

A small three person agency located in Central Florida increased their personal lines book by $800,000 in 12 months. Another in Northern Florida with three employees increased their personal lines commission revenue by $117,000 in the first seven months of 2005. A larger 14 person agency in upstate New York experienced a $95,000 personal lines commission increase during the same period without any matching increase in the number of agency staff.

What do these agencies all have in common?

They have discovered how to effectively and efficiently write new personal lines business through employee marketing. As professional independent agents, they can offer their new, and dramatically expanded customer base, variety and choices of coverage through their existing multiple markets.

The old concept of Worksite Marketing has been around for years and has yielded varying levels of success for agents. But the new concept of "Employee Marketing" is quite different. The new customers agents are attracting by reaching them at their place of employment are treated exactly the same as the agency's existing customers. They're offered your standard markets at your standard levels of commission. They become your customers of your agency.

Reduce the 'Hassle Factor'

What the new concept of "Employee Marketing" does is bring new customers to you by making it easier for them to do business with you and your agency by offering them the benefit of paying for their insurance through payroll deduction. Most insurance consumers view keeping up with payments, lump sum up-front deposits for coverage and automatic cancellation notices as real hassles when it comes to their "insurance experience."

As a PIA member, you now have a unique opportunity to introduce employee marketing to your agency at a reduced "PIA member only" price. The concept and method of employee marketing is an important component in PIA National's "Take Back Personal Lines" campaign. While the name of this campaign might sound like a Herculean task and a goal that's unattainable for the average agent, it really isn't.

We've all heard or read about agencies that have been able to "move the mark" significantly through some type of focused sales and marketing approach that has really worked for them and their agency. The key to this type of success is that their efforts first, must be focused and second that they have an approach that is right for their agency. The agencies referred to at the beginning of this article represent just a few of the hundreds of agencies that are already employing personal lines "employee marketing." Perhaps this type of approach would be well-suited for your agency as well.

PIA Member Discount

PIA National, through its Products Committee, spent months reviewing the employee marketing approach being offered by Agency Revenue Tools, Inc. After satisfying themselves that this is a solid method that works and delivers concrete results, the Committee asked Agency Revenue Tools to create special pricing that would be available only to PIA Members. The result is the "PIA Quickstart Program." This program offers PIA Members the lowest price for their services offered to any agency anywhere.

Over the past three months, the Agency Revenue Tools "team" has attended PIA state conventions in Virginia/DC, Wisconsin, Georgia and Louisiana to let PIA Members know more about the program and help them decide if its right for them and their agencies. Those convention visits yielded 139 agencies requesting follow-up. They could see the potential and were attracted to the opportunities of employee marketing.

Agency Revenue Tools will help you evaluate the potential for employee marketing in your agency so that you can make an informed decision. If you decide to proceed, you'll be instructed on every aspect of employee marketing from experts who have personally engaged in it for years. You'll also be taught how to use online software to simplify the management of your accounts and streamline your involvement in the billing process through automated EFT transactions.

The idea that Professional Insurance Agents can actually take back personal lines market share from direct writers is quite bold and audacious - and that's why it is perfectly suited to the competitive spirit of PIA members.

This article presented you with a quick overview of employee marketing using the Agency Revenue Tools approach. For more information contact Bill Jenkins at PIA National at either billje@pianet.org or 703-518-1363.

This article originally appeared in the September 2005 PIA Connection.